Water Hazard
Water Hazard is the eleventh episode of Tremors: The Series. In Universe Perspective From the survival journal of Burt Gummer: I rolled back into town not a day too soon. Recently, in a moment of financial desperation, Rosalita accepted an offer to work for that turd, Melvin Plugg over in neighboring Bixby at his new housing development, The Oasis. While Melvin was showing her the property's extravagant artificial "lagoon," the two discover one of his workers floating in that glorified pond — with his head chewed off. While Melvin agonized over the possible delay of his grand opening, Rosalita spotted some mysterious tracks and picked up a strange piece of shell. She urged Melvin to call in Tyler, then she took the shell fragment to that federalisimo scientist Dr. Casey Matthews for further study. Tyler went out to the pond that night to begin investigating. There, he met two cops who were probing the water for clues. The next instant, a creature attacked from the pond. Tyler tried to rescue both men, but nearly got himself killed. Bixby's Sheriff Boggs, who wasn't interested in hearing a story about a creature from the lagoon, arrested Tyler on suspicion of murdering the two deputies. In jail, Tyler met another one of Melvin's employees. (Yep, that's the kind of quality worker Melvin attracts.) This drunk had trucked-in the water for Melvin's lagoon — after stealing it from a spring in Perfection Valley. The next morning, I convinced Sheriff Boggs to release Tyler into my supervision. Then I tried to enlighten Perfection's NASCAR nitwit about his poor decisions: First, he hadn't called me; second, he hadn't called me; and last, he hadn't called me. He didn't take my constructive criticism well at all. Fine, I figured. If he wants to handle this without my help, so be it. By this point Dr. Matthews had discovered that the shell fragment from Melvin's über-pond contained both ancient DNA belonging to a giant prehistoric shrimp — and Mixmaster, that government chemical that does misbegotten things with non-human DNA; I'd encountered it before. Mixmaster had apparently regressed the DNA of one of the tiny brine shrimp in our local springs. When Melvin's goon stole the water the altered creature came along to The Oasis, where it grew huge. Learning this, Melvin decided he didn't want his development held up by scientific attempts to study killer crustaceans. He dumped diesel fuel into his pond in an attempt to kill the creature. Undeterred, the shrimp escaped overland into the aqueduct. If it swam from there into the reservoir, it could vanish off the proverbial radar and spread Mixmaster throughout Nevada — and, all too quickly, the world. Tyler, Twitchell and Sheriff Boggs raced to the aqueduct. They had to trap the creature without making it bleed (which would contaminate the water with Mixmaster). Tyler borrowed from Rosalita a truckload of portable fencing, which he erected as a submerged barrier across the aqueduct. As the creature drew closer, Twitchell ordered a van-load of dry ice rushed to the site. Once the creature arrived, Twitchell sacrificed his car by driving it into the water, trapping the shrimp between the vehicle and the fence. (Tyler swears Mr. Red-Tape Bureaucrat really did this. I'm skeptical.) The group then dumped dry ice into the aqueduct until the trapped shrimp froze to death. The world was safe for another day (give or take). Later, I buried the hatchet with Tyler. I conceded that perhaps I'd been a bit too harsh ... this time. Rosalita remained worried about her financial situation until Tyler observed that she was one of very few people who knew that Melvin had stolen federally protected water for his housing project. Rosalita went straight out to visit Melvin. I don't know what she told him, but I know she came home with a hefty check. "Blackmail" is such an ugly word ... but it beats "bankrupt" any day. Plot The town of Perfection needs to drill their water well deeper, because their water supply is drying up. When Jodi works out how much this will cost, it amounts to $6000 each. Because of her financial problems, Rosalita secretly goes to Melvin to take up a lucrative job offer, he wants to hire her as a hostess to get people to buy his golf course homes. When she accepts his offer of a tour, she discovers a headless body of one of his employees and a strange shell plate, indicating the presence of a monster. As Tyler is also having cash flow problems, she gets Melvin to hire him as well to "solve the problem". But when the local police are killed by the monster, Melvin hangs Tyler out to dry. In the meantime, Casey has examined the shell fragment and discovers that Mixmaster has somehow turned a common shrimp into it's prehistoric giant ancestor. Using dry ice, a fence and Twitchell's car, they manage to kill the shrimp by freezing it solid. To keep Rosalita silent about his accidental endangering of his clients, Melvin writes out a huge amount of money on a check for her. Cast Category:Episode